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SPECIALITY ONION SEED of VARIOUS TYPES:

~ FIRSTLY, SALAD / BUNCHING / SPRING ONIONS ~

Salad onions, also known as Spring, Green or Bunching onions, don't make a bulb.
Instead, they quickly make a white stem with green leaves at the top,
and the whole plant is chopped up and used fresh in salads or cooking.

They are quicker and milder than bulbing onions. We really like them chopped in soups, stews and omelettes, as well as in salads.
These versatile plants give you some nice greens from a small area, often available when there is not much else in the garden.

When to sow? Usually sow after midsummer, for cold-hardy onions, over wintering for use the following spring.
(They can also be sown in Spring - shown in pale green below - for very nice spring onions from the start of July on into August.)

Kyoto Market (green leaves)
We chose this well-known traditional variety from Japan because it has been particularly bred to make a lot of green leaves. Chop them all up and add to omlettes, soups, stew and salads.

It also splits into bunches as it grows and you can divide the clump to multiply your onion patch.

Green leaves, bunching type which divides as it grows.

Order OnKM 300 seed £1.67

Feast (long white stems)
Feast is a modern variety that we chose because it has been bred for very long white stems. What would be a 'bulb' in a normal onion here is drawn out very tall and thin, giving a plant that looks like a small onion-flavoured leek.

It is easily chopped and used instead of onions in any recipe. In Japan they repeatedly earth up to make them particularly long and white, but it grows very well even if you just leave it be.

Long white leek-shaped spring onion. Not a dividing-type; each seed gives one onion, just as normal.

Order OnFe 300 seed £1.67

~ Rare SHALLOTS from Seed ~

Zebrune Shallot
Shallots are similar to normal onions, but a bit different. They are smaller, and a different mix of flavour compounds - less strongly 'oniony', and therefore sweeter & milder to taste.

They grow quite well from seed, and Zebrune is a fairly modern variety; it makes bigger bulbs than traditional shallots, so there is less peeling to do, and it was deliberately selected for growing from seed rather than sets.

This kind is popularised on TV cookery shows as a 'banana shallot' (because it is slightly curved). Excellent in salads or cooked.

They do not make as many seed as ordinary onions, and they are quite rare, but we have still made up a packet that is pretty generous, while holding the price down as much as possible.

A fine-flavoured, large sweet mild shallot. Sow in Spring, inside in heat if possible.

Order OnZS 300 seed £1.84

~ TOPSETTING, WALKING or TREE ONIONS grown from Sets ~

Mixed Top Setting Tree Onions

Here we have a botanical oddity for you which we have grown for years, but only recently have added to the catalogue. Topsetting onions are a class of bunching onions that are, well, a bit confused.

They grow normally, but when the time comes, instead of making a flower, they make a tiny bunch of bulbils on the end of the flowerstalk where the flower should be. Sometimes these then sprout while still attached, making a second set of bulbs at the top!

They are also known as 'Tree Onions' or 'Walking Onions' because the flowerstalk falls over, and the bulbils root where they touch the ground. The next year, these form onions in the new location, grow a stalk with bulbils on top - which then falls over . . . in this way they can walk a good foot every year and eventually migrate off your plot and into the wilds.

The onions are nice and hardy, and used as any bunching onion, while the bulbils can be used in pickles, or chopped up for cooking -but we think most people really want them for amusement as much as anything else.

We are offering a mix this year of at least two types, small packets due to a poor harvest, but at a very reasonable price. Needless to say, you should never need to buy them again - just split up the bulbils and plant them out each year.

Just a very few packets this year of this very rare plant. To be fair, clear and avoid any disappointment, the bulbils are very small - about the size of a large pea.

You are requesting 1 topsetting onion - but to be sure of getting one to grow we send you four bulbils. If you don't get one established onion plant, then of course we will refund or replace.

Order OnTS £2.90 (4 bulbils supplied in a packet to be sure of at least one success)